


(Not) Scared To Be Lonely

by Liliako



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: BFFs, Comfort, Emotions and Stuff, Gen, Hanging out on a train car like cool kids, Heart-to-Heart, Heavy Zack feels, Little gifts of food, trust building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 18:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10542366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liliako/pseuds/Liliako
Summary: The sound of her backpack being tossed onto the roof of the train car wakes him up, one of those inhale-snorting noises giving him away.  She watches him blink into the late afternoon sun, barely peeking her face over the edge of the ladder, before he looks over for her.“There’s my girl,” his grin is wide and he stretches his arms out behind him, flexing his fingers like they’ve lost feeling from where they were tucked under his head.~Trini brings Zack pastries and they build their friendship in their own quiet kind of way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Stylistically different (it felt jarring to add their names in?) than I usually do but it felt like it worked, unbeta'd.

The sound of her backpack being tossed onto the roof of the train car wakes him up, one of those inhale-snorting noises giving him away.  She watches him blink into the late afternoon sun, barely peeking her face over the edge of the ladder, before he looks over for her.

“There’s my girl,” his grin is wide and he stretches his arms out behind him, flexing his fingers like they’ve lost feeling from where they were tucked under his head.  Big clunky boots rise into view and point out at the mountains before disappearing back down to kick the side of the car.

The small pastry box makes a significantly softer noise when it hits the metal roof, but that’s because she places it gently and pushes it towards him.

“Cake?” he eyes the plain white box without making any move towards it- he really must not have feeling in his fingers if he’s not all over it.  She just shrugs a shoulder while knee walking to her bag and digging out an Orangina for herself and the weird black cherry soda he likes.

He sat up when her back was turned and is massaging one hand in the other before shaking them out.  She pushes the box until it hits his hip and she settles in next to him, twisting off the cap of his soda and then her own.  He picks up the box and sniffs it while furrowing his brow in serious concentration.  She waits through his dramatic pause before giving up and taking a sip of her Orangina.

“……..Cardboard. That’s all I’ve got.”  She nearly chokes on her soda, just barely not spit taking by slapping her hand over her mouth.  He gives a crow of laughter and pops the box open, ignoring the annoyed glare she shoots him. “Oooooh, what’s this now?” He picks up one of the three flaky pastries, each one big and wide as his smile.

“Maybe you should eat one and find out instead of talking so much,” she sasses, pulling her legs up and wrapping an arm around them.  She rests her drink on the ripped knee in her jeans, condensation from the glass bottle dampening the fraying edges.

“Don’t have to tell me twice!” He takes a huge bite, even if he maybe won’t like what’s in it. But that’s Zack- unafraid, bold, mostly careless.  She feels a pang on jealousy to be so free but it passes quickly as he chews away, little crumbs scattering everywhere. “Oh shiiiiit,” his eyes go wide, eyebrows shooting up, and looking at her, then back at his newly revealed pasty innards.  “That’s amazing! What is that?”

“Guava and cream cheese,” she smiles and he returns it in tenfold. “Pretty sick, right?”

“Best thing I’ve eaten in forever,” he hastily takes a second bite that leaves only the tiniest end left.  She knows he can cook basic things, he has to for him and his mom, but because of their budget it’s a lot of canned goods.  Her family has so much that she just wants to go sleep on the floor of her brothers’ room and set Zack and his mom up in her room.  But she can’t.  So she’s starting with food.

“Save one for your mom, Scooby Doo,” she teases as he tosses the end into his mouth and licks his fingers.

“I’m sorry, did you just liken me to an old cartoon dog?” an eyebrow shoots up and she looks away innocently taking another sip of her drink.

“If the shoe fits, Cinderfella,” she grins around the top of the bottle and he huffs a laugh. “Scooby is classic, man.”

“Exactly what qualities do we share?” He sets the box to the other side of him and picks up his drink.

“You both have bottomless pits for stomachs,” she uses the bottle to point at him and he clinks the necks in agreement. “And you’re kind of like a doofy puppy.”

“Aw, come on, I can’t even be Shaggy?  I’m definitely the cool one of the group,” he wiggles his eyebrows and has that suave face he always uses when he’s flirting.  He knows she’s not interested but he likes to use the face on her anyway, for charming points or something.

“In your dreams, dog breath!  Jason is clearly Fred-” Minus the ascot, but Jason could probably pull it off, honestly.

“Preppy is preppy, right. And Kim is clearly Daphne because duh.” His head bobs as his shoulder shrugs.

“Unresolved sexual tension with Fred aside, yup.  Billy is Velma because he’s the smartest…” she takes a long drink, gazes into the lowering sun and waits for it.

“Wait- You think _you’re_ Shaggy?!” He bursts out and gapes at her. “No way, nuh-uh, this is unfair. I demand a recount.”

“Sure sure, oh what’s that?” She holds her hand on her ear, “The universe says ‘suck it, Scoob’,” she warbles a terrible Shaggy impression that he graciously doesn’t call her on.

“Aw, noooo!” He flings himself back on the roof, dramatically throwing an arm over his face.  He’s careful with his half-filled drink, setting it beside the pastry box away from them.

They enjoy a peaceful quiet, she follows the sun as it dips behind the mountains while finishing her soda, setting it to the side with a little glass clink. He might be asleep again under his arm, she can’t quite tell, his other arm slung across his torso rising and falling with slow breaths.

She’s always been a watcher, she susses out people and situations before even dipping her toe into the social white water rapids.  She likes watching him, all of them, really.  She’s sat at football games and seen Jason in his glory, eyed Billy from across lab stations in his science element, observed Kimberly in classes and at lunch with the buzz of people around her constantly.  But she likes watching Zack with his zen aura just laying or sitting or sleeping on top of his train car doing nothing in particular.  When he’s in motion he’s so different, but this one place shifts everything into low gear.  Maybe it’s the din of nature around them, or the warmth of the sun while she’d spent hours trying to figure him out from afar, either way he understands being voluntarily alone the way she does.  He watched her right back, after all.

He reaches out and tugs the hem of her shirt, peeking one eye open from under his arm, catching her gaze.  With the sun gone she stretches out on her stomach next to him, in the curve of his arm, leaving a small gap that he quickly shuts by hugging her in close.  She rests her forehead on his shoulder and he reaches on his other side to snag his drink again.

The sky turns from pinks and blues to navy and she spots the moon already out.  Neither of them wants to go home but they know they have to.

“Check in,” he breaks their blissful silence and she mutters a groan into his shirt.  He jostles her playfully, “You want me to go first? I can’t always go first, you know.”  In the same way she’s started to bring him little gifts of food, he’s started to push her to talk things out and be a bit more vulnerable.  It’s the awkward stage of friendship she assumes everyone goes through where you’re trying to acclimate to each other so you stick with what you know.  She knows food, he knows how to talk.

She doesn’t have enough energy to try it with everyone, but because Kimberly has no other friends at the moment they hang out at the coffee shop after school.  Every story to start was about Kimberly’s old friends, but at some point she phased them out and replaced them with everyday things.  The bird she watched out the window in math, the characters in her English book, fun science facts that their teacher mentioned but were never relevant to the lesson.  That’s the ground she and Kimberly are on still- light, airy, creampuffy.  It’s heavier with Zack. He dove right into the deep end and once they got there they stayed there.

“I went home after 4 yesterday, just before the sun started lightening up the sky, that’s how I know when to go.” It’s no wonder he naps all the time in the sun, staying up all night doing nothing out here.  “She just looks smaller every time I see her.  And I can’t do anything about it and I don’t know what to say around her, but then anything I do say might be the last thing I ever get to say to her, y’know?” He finishes off his soda and she finds a small stain on the side of his shirt. Probably blood from training.  She covers it with the tip of her pointer finger and fans her hand out over his side, moving as he takes a long even breath.

She never knows what to say, so she doesn’t waste hollow words because he deserves better.  Listening, being there, that’s all she can do but she’s getting good at it.

“I have to go home though.  I’m the only person she ever sees because she never leaves that bed.” He flips the bottle from neck to bottom in his hand, starting slow and rhythmic before getting faster.  “I feel lost when I’m there but I feel worse when I haven’t been there.”  It never gets fumbled; he stops for a moment with his grasp around the neck.  A droplet of dark purple runs down and drips out onto his shirt- another stain.

In one quick sharp movement he cocks his arm back and throws the bottle, she hears it whistling as it rushes through the air before it smashes into the rock quarry wall and shatters.

“It’s shitty and it’s not fair to be seventeen and know your mom won’t make it to see you do anything with your life. She won’t be there at graduation, at when I get a car, or turn twenty one, or get married, or have babies, none of it.” He sniffs sharply and lets out a shuddery breath that she feels all over. “It just fucking sucks.”  His arm comes up to hide his face and she doesn’t want to look but she can’t help it. 

They haven’t known each other long but she’s seen that frown once before, the weight of everything Zack carries every moment of every day pulling him down. She wraps her arm over him and squeezes fiercely.

“She’s not even gone and I miss her, how stupid is that?” He chokes out a laugh, scrubbing the heels of his hands in his eyes.  She takes big, deep breaths and he matches them, cheek pressed hard on his chest like she’s willing strength into him that she doesn’t even think she has to give.

They lay as the stars come out and just breathe.

His hands fall away from his face finally, coming down to pat her head and arm she has around him.  She resolutely doesn’t move because she’s embarrassed about the little patch of tear stains she’s left on his shirt.  She’s adding to his mess, not very helpful at all.

“Good cry, solid emotional release, nine out of ten, would get all snotty in front of you again,” he jokes and wiggles her beanie around messing up her hair.  “Don’t think this gets you a pass, it’s still your turn now.”

“I can’t follow that, man,” She pulls away and sits up.  Her fight or flight response is kicking in and she’s aware of it but can’t tell it to shut up. “All of my problems seem stupid and whiny compared to yours. I don’t even want to talk about them.”  She’s reaching for the lifeline of her backpack, goes to grab her empty bottle but he snatches it up first.  Her eyes narrow as she holds out her hand for it, he tosses it back and forth between his hands.  He’s poured all the charm back into his face and he uses it to make dumb faces at her.

“Oh you want this back?” Eyebrows raised in a classic surprised innocent face.  She lunges for it but his arms are longer anyway so it’s easy for his to hold it out of her reach behind him.  “See the thing is they’re your problems and I want to know about them.”

“You can’t fix my parents and you can’t fix me so it’s pointless.” It’s close to a spar but not quite that way she darts for the bottle and he swaps hands to one side and then the other.

“I don’t want to fix you.  Do you think you need fixing?”  The bravado is out of his face and it’s back to just the open, vulnerable, rooftop face that somehow gets her to say things.  He’s honestly curious.  He genuinely seems to give a shit what she’s going to say, and like her, he’ll wait her out until she answers.

“To them I do.”  It’s hard to articulate so she picks at the fraying bits of her jeans for time.  “When you hear over and over again that you aren’t good enough the way you are… it eventually gets to you.”  He sets the bottle behind him and sits cross legged facing her.

“I know that I’m different, and people try to be friends with you for the wrong reasons, so I don’t want to make those mistakes again.  Trusting people is hard.”  She can’t look at him so she tries to look for the glittering glass he’d thrown.  “You don’t know how they’ll react when you tell them you’re different.  They could leave, they could think you’re weird, or they could use it against you.”

“You keep saying ‘different’….” He prompts her and she knew since the bonfire he picked up on things faster than the others but now it’s proving to be to her disadvantage.

“Gay isn’t a thing you can say in my house. Lesbian would really be pushing it.”  She’s never understood why but it gets her mother even more wound up so they avoid it all together.  “Different also includes my aversion to people, apathy towards social norms, and clearly my fashion sense isn’t Gap approved.” She smooths her beanie back away from her face a bit.  “So that’s it.  Those are my first world problems.  I’m a classic disappointment to my parents and regular social outcast, check off those boxes and move along to college or whatever, right?”

There's a beat where neither one of them says anything.  She doesn't have anything else to say though so she waits, and she it beyond sure she can out wait him.

“Thank you for sharing with me.”  It’s a genuine warm smile that he gives her and she really doesn’t know what to do with it, nor the entire sentiment.  It feels super formal.  “Thank you for trusting me with this.” He reaches out and tugs both sides of her beanie.  “I love you the way you are and, frankly, you’re stuck with me Shaggy.”  He tries to pull her in for a hug and she’s one thousand percent over mushy feeling time.

“Oh my god,” she gasps out as she struggles to push him off. “I never should have fed you, they always say if you feed a stray it’ll never leave.”

“You love me toooooo,” He sing songs at her and rocks her back and forth in a tight squeeze. “BFFs forever, we should make bracelets, Black and Yellow are besties,” he cackles and she gives in and pats him on the back hoping he’ll let her go soon.

Maybe it was time to trust someone, even if it was just a little.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like these two get into scrappy adventures together but also are super close because they both just like their quiet alone time. Now they can have quiet alone time with someone!


End file.
